The Helios Disaster

by Linda Bostrom Knausgaard

  Then Erik would pray for the congregation. Then it was me.

  The edges of my vision were burning as I approached the lectern. My tongue felt rough and sluggish, as if it were too large for my mouth. The red moved behind my eyelids each time I blinked. It was as if I didn’t dare to blink because the red was there, but in the end I had to, of course. Erik led me by the arm; it was like he was holding me up, like I couldn’t walk without him. I didn’t dare to look at the congregation, even if I could sense its presence. I knew that the church was full, so full that many people were standing. I looked down at the floor, and it was as if he were dragging me, Erik. My legs were soft and didn’t follow me. I had to tell my body what to do: blink, one more step, and then another. Up at the lectern I hugged myself so hard that my knuckles turned white. I nodded at Selma at the organ.

  The words came. I sobbed with relief. They came powerfully, and it was as if I were always a step behind the words, as if they pulled me after them. I didn’t have time to swallow, because the words were in the way and they wanted out. They pounded out of me like tears, and they came so intensely that I had to cry out. I cried out in the church and I thought about the pastor from Uppsala and Sven and Birgitta and the boys who were sitting there somewhere and I didn’t want anything to do with the dizziness that came because I was with the words that didn’t cease. We held each other’s hands and walked across a large meadow. It was windy and the light was so bright that we squinted at the sun and there, far off, were bronzed mountains and we walked in those mountains all the way to where the sea was waiting. We fell. Fell together, down into the sea.

  When I woke up I was once again lying in the small room within the nave. Erik bent over me and I looked into his eyes and thought: never. Never again.

  Sven came, and Birgitta and Ulf and Urban. They all crowded into the small room and from far away I heard Sven talking to Erik about how this couldn’t be good for me. He was agitated. And yet his voice didn’t penetrate to me as I lay there looking up at the whitewashed ceiling. There was some strong smell in there, and I tried to figure out what it was. Ulf crouched down beside me where I lay on the wooden pew. He smiled, I could feel that. It was a smile that hit me in the face, where it flowed out and warmed me.

  ‘Anna,’ he whispered. ‘Anna. I love you.’

  What did he say? Suddenly he was gone and Urban crouched down and sought my gaze.

  ‘Anna. How are you?’ He spoke slowly, as always. ‘Anna, I have to talk to you about what the pastor said. The church is empty. Everyone has gone home, Anna. I’m going to tell you, but first you have to get up.’

  Urban’s voice. I think that was what I liked the very most. His manner of shaping his lips around the words; it seemed both careful and beautiful. There was no doubt inside him; everything was ready in there. He took my hands and pulled me up so I was sitting in the pew. He crouched before me, didn’t let go of my hands.

  ‘Anna. I wasn’t supposed to hear them talking to each other. The pastor and the other one from Uppsala. I was standing right next to them.’

  His eyes, tearing into me. Urban and me, alone, with the others on the fringes.

  I was listening to him now. To the words and the tone of them. The whole room was singing. We looked at each other, and our eyes held each other. It was an instant that lasted for eternity. When the words came, it was as if they were falling from the sky.

  ‘It’s not tongues you’re speaking, Anna. It’s Greek.’

  -

  PART TWO

  -

  I REMEMBER THE taxi ride. And the room we came into. Urban’s hand on my shoulder. How he squeezed it. Calmly. As calmly as only he could do, and we sat down on two vinyl chairs. Three people came into the room. They introduced themselves to me and I stared at them, trying to understand what they were saying. I hadn’t seen anyone outside the family for a long time, and they were so bright. So bright, with their coats and their hair combed back neatly.

  ‘My name is Bengt,’ said one. ‘I’m a senior physician here. Your brother is very worried about you.’

  ‘Mats, I’m an intern.’

  He was blond and smiled with the teeth he had. I was afraid of him. His upper body swayed this way and that as he sat down in his chair. The room had woven curtains that fought to cover the windows, but still a beam of light came in and cut across the senior physician, seeming to cut him in two, and I thought that he had a bright and a dark side.

  The last person to introduce himself was Artan. He was a nurse here, he said in a voice that vibrated in the room. It was a voice you wanted to listen to, I had time to think as they sat before us like three judges and I was the one who would be judged. How had I ended up here?

  Urban had gotten me dressed and said that we were going to the hospital, that there was nothing else we could do. He begged me to trust him. He had spoken to them on the phone.

  ‘Like I said, your brother is very worried. Can you tell us how you feel?’

  This question was directed at me; it flew through the room like a spear.

  ‘Can you tell us?’ Bengt asked, crossing one leg over the other. He stared at me, forcing me to close my eyes. Bengt, Mats, and Artan wandered behind my eyelids like phantoms. They floated in the room and it was Urban’s hand that brought me back. He embraced me suddenly and tightly. He held onto me as if he would never let go, and that’s probably what he was saying with the embrace. I won’t let you go. I will never let you go. I opened my eyes again. They were sitting still in their chairs, and it was as if they had doubled, as if there were at least six of them there before me.

  ‘My sister hasn’t spoken for a long time,’ I heard my brother saying, far off.

  ‘How long has it been since you’ve spoken?’

  I tried to loosen something in my throat, something that was in the way. I thought that he would hit me, Bengt, if I couldn’t. I looked at Artan, who met my gaze without wanting anything from me. But then, when I closed my eyes again, Urban squeezed my hand hard.

  ‘We’re all here to help you,’ said Bengt, and the intern and Artan nodded in agreement.

  Urban looked at me. How he looked at me, with tears hanging there in his eyes.

  I looked at the door behind them. The door I’d come in through. How had that happened? I had no memory of coming in through that door. Had they carried me? I looked at Urban. He was looking at me seriously. As if he were trying to tell me something with his eyes, something the others couldn’t hear. I should stay here, he said. That was what he was saying. No more than that. I heard the words pushing out through his eyes; I saw them like colours. He coloured the room red with his plea. He was imploring me. I looked and looked at him. It was all I could do. There was nothing more than him. That’s how it was, and it could never be any other way.

  ‘So you can’t speak,’ said Bengt.

  He turned to the intern: ‘Speech latency non-existent.’ Bengt wrote on a notepad. His pen scratched inside me, cutting me up inside, and I could see the blood streaming out of me.

  ‘Can you help me die?’

  I uttered this wish into the room, loudly and distinctly. It came from the very deepest part of me, and it bounced around from wall to wall. I knew that it was what I wanted, and now that I knew it I would never forget.

  Bengt leaned forward. He tried to catch my gaze, but he couldn’t because I was looking down at my hands. Urban was crying. I heard him crying, and it tore at me because it was the last thing I wanted to give him, but it was all I had. The only thing that was true.

  ‘We’re going to help you want to live,’ said Bengt.

  ‘You don’t realize it now, but there is a life for you, a good life, and it’s waiting for you,’ said Artan, and it was as if the entire room gasped because he had spoken for so long.

  ‘Shall we agree, Anna, that you’ll stay here for a while?’

  I couldn’t
open my mouth. But I looked at Urban so he would understand that I refused. He had to do the greatest thing one person can do for another. He had to help me die.

  ‘Then we’re in agreement,’ said Bengt, because he thought the meeting had lasted long enough.

  All three stood up and held out their hands to me because I was supposed to shake them, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t have moved, if it hadn’t been for Urban who had stuffed me into my down coat over my nightgown, and tied my boots. I had lifted my foot to help him. Maybe I had consented to it all? No. I had only done it because it was him. That was the only reason.

  ‘Artan will show you to the ward.’

  I looked at Urban, begged him with my eyes, but I saw that he was letting me go. That he was releasing me, to these three. To the entire hospital. That he had taken his hand from me and that he was going to rest now, because he had been carrying such weight.

  I held him. Clung to him. I was screaming inside. But no one heard, so he left. He walked out the door after saying, ‘I’ll come and visit you. Every day at first.’

  ‘It’s best if you go now,’ said Bengt. ‘There’s no point in dragging it out.’

  The sound of the door. I was alone. I was more alone than I’d ever been, and I fell. Fell through my body, down to where the silence was with its yellow light around it like a wreath.

  ‘Come on,’ said Artan, lifting me off the floor, propping me up on my legs.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said then. ‘One step, and then another. One foot in front of the other. Good.’

  We walked down a hallway. Candy-striped sofas and small tables, numbers on the doors, into the room. A few people were sitting at one table, playing games. I couldn’t look at them, but one woman with slanted bangs got up and stood in front of me.

  ‘My name is Petra.’ She looked through her papers. ‘You’re Anna; I’m working here tonight. Do you have any pets?’

  Was Artan leaving? Who was this Petra? I fell down again, but Artan was quick and carried me the last few steps into the room.

  ‘You’re going to sleep in the therapy room tonight,’ he said. ‘The ward is full, but tomorrow you’ll get a real room.’

  Petra came in behind him, removed the telephone, and left. There was a small sofa bed, a table, and a piano too.

  ‘It’s late, so you’ll get your dinner on a tray tonight. Otherwise we eat together, out there. It’s an important part of treatment here. Goodbye, Anna. I’ll come back tomorrow. Sleep well.’

  He closed the door behind him.

  I sat down on the small bed. Artan had left, and there was only one thought going through my head. I can’t be here. I can’t be here. I lay down on the bed and pulled the blanket over me. I did it even though I couldn’t. I closed my eyes and it was crawling inside me and there was this pressure on my chest. Why didn’t I die from it? It was like I had a giant’s foot on my ribcage, pressing me down. I stared at the green fabric of the sofa bed until it grew dark and the colours disappeared and there was a knock at the door and Inga stepped in and she said that the Night had come. The Night, that was the night shift, I realized, because she had brought a tray of medicine. I was given both pills and some drops to swallow.

  ‘So that you can sleep, dear, and it’s also for the anxiety.’

  The anxiety? What was the anxiety? I thought in the dark.

  ‘Take it all, and try to think as little as possible to start with. You just have to believe that it will get better.’

  I didn’t say anything, but I swallowed everything she gave me. She left me alone, there in the bed, and I slowly felt the giant’s foot disappearing, and something settled like cotton around my thoughts.

  The morning came. I was awake. No. I was awake. The giant’s foot was everywhere, coming in and pressing and leaving nothing behind. The light made its way into the small room. The window didn’t have blinds; there was only a green curtain that covered the very top. What should I do? Where was Urban? The loss of him ripped and tore at me. And yet nothing would be better if he were here. I knew that the way you know that the sun will come up the next day. I was wearing a white nightgown with a blue logo on the chest. Every button was buttoned. When had that happened? Who had taken off my own nightgown and exchanged it for this one?

  I sat on the window ledge to look at the sky, which was white and seemed full of snow that would soon fall. I didn’t dare to go to the bathroom, even though I needed to. I couldn’t leave this room, just as little as I could stay in it.

  I sat there until there was a knock at the door and Artan stepped in.

  ‘Good morning, Anna. Put on these clothes, now. I’ll wait outside for two minutes, and then I’ll come back in.’

  He left a white shirt and a pair of light-blue sweatpants, underpants, and a pair of socks; then he left again. I looked at the clothes he had left on the sofa bed. Couldn’t do anything else. When Artan came in again, he looked at me and at the clothes and said that he would go get a female nurse if I didn’t shape up.

  ‘It’s best for you to do it yourself. You might as well get dressed and get up for breakfast. I’ll turn my back, and you put on your clothes.’

  I did as he said. Why, I don’t know; maybe because I thought of the woman with the slanted bangs, or Inga, whose voice in the dark scared me. I put on one article of clothing after another, until I was done. Then I sat down on the sofa bed, as if the effort it had taken to put on my clothes had taken all the strength I had left.

  ‘Come on now,’ said Artan. ‘You can go to the bathroom and then you must eat breakfast.’

  I needed to pee so badly that what came out of me never stopped. I sat there, feeling the water leave my body, and I thought, there must not be anything left after that, and I listened to the noise that didn’t end, but finally it did after all. I avoided the mirror, just pulled up my underwear and my pants with my eyes on the red-speckled linoleum floor. The bathroom didn’t lock, and I knocked on the door when I was finished to be let out. I didn’t want to walk anywhere, so Artan held me up and led me to the breakfast table, where there were people sitting on almost all the chairs. I felt them looking at me, so I held firmly to my gaze so it wouldn’t try to find anything. Artan had to press me into a chair and the surface of the table was worn; I could see that, at least. Artan got filmjölk and cornflakes and a cheese sandwich for me, and then he came back with juice and tea.

  ‘Eat,’ he said.

  I lifted the spoon slowly and dipped it in the filmjölk and cornflakes and brought it to my mouth. Ate a bite. It stung my throat because I hadn’t chewed the cornflakes. I did it again, but I tried to chew this time. Swallowed. It worked. One bite and then another one and all the time, Artan was there on the chair beside me like some kind of shield. The cheese sandwich tasted good. It was impossible to explain to myself why I ate the whole sandwich without difficulty. I drank up the juice, too, and tasted the tea.

  ‘Good, Anna,’ said Artan. ‘The daytime medication will come soon, and then you’ll take a shower.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  It just came out, that no. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want anything. I didn’t want to be anywhere.

  ‘It’s better to shower than not to shower,’ said Artan.

  I looked at him, at his dark eyes, thinking about what they had seen. For one second I thought about it. Then it was just black again. As if I were closing myself off from the world that squeezed me and wanted to get into me. Everyone who was sitting around the table was staring at me. I could feel it, how their eyes were eating at me a little at a time.

  I received a plastic cup with different-coloured pills and a bigger plastic cup with water to swallow them down. Artan held his hand above my shoulder and it was like it was saying now you have to take your medicine and get better. You’ll get better, said the hand, but it’s going to take time. Do you have time, Anna? Do you have the patience it takes to ge
t well? Are you strong enough, the hand asked, and I didn’t know anything, so I told the truth, that I knew nothing, but I took the medicine and washed it down with the water.

  The minutes felt as long as years and I couldn’t be in the sort of time that didn’t move, that instead stood still and all I could think of was being allowed to die, being allowed to cut the thread of time forever. But first I had to shower. Artan spoke to me gently and firmly at the same time and he pushed me toward the shower room and once again he waited outside. The water washed over me. Hot, as hot as it could be without burning me, but it was impossible to get the water that hot. I washed my hair, and I didn’t know when I had last done that; they had let me be, Urban, Ulf, Birgitta, and Sven. Just let me lie in bed and float through the days and nights, no difference between them. Birgitta had fed me, but that worked better with Urban, so in the end he had had to do everything, but he hadn’t bathed me. And Birgitta probably hadn’t dared to. I pumped out shampoo from a dispenser attached to the wall, and I ran my fingers through my matted hair, again and again until the mats loosened. I soaped my body with a bar of soap that was also attached to the wall. I washed my whole body, and I thought it was strange that I could do it even though I didn’t want to. That I did as Artan said even though my entire being wanted to do otherwise.

  Artan gave me an extra towel for my hair and I didn’t do anything with it, so he dried my hair and together we walked to a supply room where I received a brush and another change of clothes.

  ‘The best thing would be if you had your own clothes,’ said Artan. ‘But we’ll worry about that later. Right now it’s important for you to think only about this moment. Do you feel anything from the medicine?’

  ‘No,’ I said, and I wondered why I was lying to Artan.

  Because, of course, I could feel something quieting inside me. I was lying because I didn’t intend to stay here. I would go home and then I would find a way. A way that would present itself to me like a revelation.